Chamber warns Executive Order opens door to dismantling 70 years of small business contracting law.
WASHINGTON, April 18, 2025 -- The American Small Business Chamber of Commerce™ (ASBCC) (http://asbcc.org), the nation's leading voice for small business federal suppliers, today released a comprehensive policy memo rebutting the Administration's new Executive Order on federal procurement titled "Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement."
Chamber warns Executive Order opens door to dismantling 70 years of small business contracting law.
ASBCC warns that the Executive Order, signed on April 15, 2025, gives federal agencies sweeping authority to rewrite or suspend small business protections—without Congressional input, public notice, or transparency. The memo details how the order enables regulatory rollbacks, bypasses the Rule of Two, and threatens to gut long-standing safeguards for Veteran-Owned, Women-Owned, HUBZone, and other small business contracting programs.
"This Executive Order reads like a procedural memo," said Charmagne Manning, President of The American Small Business Chamber of Commerce, "but its implications are profound. It opens the door for agency leaders to quietly dismantle 70 years of bipartisan law designed to ensure small businesses have a fair shot at federal contracts. The economic fallout could be swift—gutting small business revenues, devastating local economies, and putting tens of thousands of jobs at risk. It could weaken competition, the defense industrial base, innovation, and the responsiveness of the federal supplier base."
The ASBCC memo, titled 'Dismantling the Executive Order on 'Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement', calls out the Administration's reliance on vague efficiency claims while failing to reference even a single statutory small business requirement—including the government-wide 23% small business contracting goal or the Rule of Two, a legal mandate affirmed by the Supreme Court in Kingdomware Technologies v. United States.
The memo outlines:
- How deviation authority granted under the EO can be used immediately to bypass set-aside rules;
- How the FAR rewrite may eliminate small business enforcement infrastructure;
- The legal risks of redefining terms like "fair market price" to exclude emerging firms;
- And the ripple effects on competition, job creation, regional economies, innovation, responsiveness and national security.
The Chamber also included an annotated footnote and source file, backed by GAO decisions, SBA economic data, and Congressional findings.
"The small business community is not asking for special treatment—we're asking for the law to be followed," Manning continued. "Congress made its intentions clear. The American taxpayer deserves a supplier base that is dynamic, diverse, and resilient—not one that's quietly consolidated through bureaucratic shortcuts."
If acted upon, the authority granted by this Executive Order could gut billions in small business revenue, devastate local economies, and threaten the livelihoods of tens of thousands of workers employed by federal small business suppliers. These firms are not isolated—they are woven into the economies of nearly every congressional district in the country.
In addition to the memo, ASBCC has prepared three supporting reports:
- America's Economic Engine: Why Protecting Small Business in Federal Contracting Is a National Imperative;
- Bipartisan Foundations: A History of Congressional Support for Small Business Contracting Laws; and
- Guaranteed by Law: The Statutory and Regulatory Foundation of Small Business Participation in Federal Contracting.
ASBCC is preparing a companion national strategy framework for use by elected officials, watchdog agencies, and business leaders committed to preserving small business access. The Chamber urges Congress to hold immediate oversight hearings and calls on agency Inspectors General and the SBA Office of Advocacy to intervene before irreversible damage is done.
Download the Full Rebuttal Memo: http://www.asbcc.org/AmericasSupplyBase
The American Small Business Chamber of Commerce™ is our nation's leading independent force working to open the doors to small business supplier contracts. For additional information, go to http://asbcc.org.
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